The rules of Lukas and Marianne’s “game”

The rules of Lukas and Marianne’s “game” govern a sexual arrangement that Marianne initially proposes, but they do not make every later act consensual. At first, rules regulate what she may say and do during the encounter and when it ends; in Sweden, Lukas’s use of restraint and his claim that she loves him turn that arrangement into a crisis. Read alongside Marianne’s conversations with Connell, the rules expose a distinction between choosing submission and being able to refuse it.

The Arrangement and Its Limits

Marianne and Lukas call their arrangement “the game.” While it is underway, she is not allowed to speak or make eye contact; breaking those rules means being punished later. The encounter does not end when sex is over, but when Marianne gets into the shower. Lukas may prolong that interval by talking to her and telling her things about herself. These conditions give the arrangement a structure extending beyond the sexual act, and make its endpoint something Lukas controls in practice.

Marianne’s response to the game is conflicted rather than simply pleasurable. She wants to hear Lukas’s degrading statements, yet recognizes that she can desire something she does not want. The gratification is brief, followed by sickness and shivering; afterward, she experiences deep depression and relinquishes a sense of ownership over her body. The rules therefore organize an experience whose appeal and cost remain distinct: wanting to enter the arrangement does not mean that its consequences feel good or that she has surrendered all capacity to judge them.

Marianne’s Earlier Account of Submission

The rules of the Swedish arrangement become more troubling in light of what Marianne had already told Connell about her sexual preferences. She described submission as a dynamic she had proposed herself, explaining that what mattered was knowing she would degrade herself for someone if that person wanted her to. She also said that Jamie’s violence had exceeded what she enjoyed: he hit her with a belt and choked her, and she questioned whether submission could mean submitting only to things she liked. This account distinguishes her interest in choosing vulnerability from any simple approval of harm. It also makes clear why the existence of an agreed framework cannot, by itself, settle whether a particular act is wanted.

The Rules Break Down in Sweden

The limits of the arrangement become unmistakable during a photographic session in Lukas’s studio. After Marianne removes her clothes at his direction, he binds her wrists with thick black ribbon and continues taking pictures. When he prepares another length of ribbon, she says she does not want to continue. Lukas acknowledges her refusal but presses on, putting a hand around her throat and using the cloth as a blindfold. The scene makes the imbalance concrete: the rules she had once accepted do not preserve her ability to stop what is happening.

The decisive rupture comes when Lukas tells Marianne that he loves her and knows she loves him. She pulls away, demands that he untie her, and threatens to call the police. Once her wrists are free, she removes the blindfold, dresses, and tells him she feels nothing for him. His professed love does not soften the coercion; instead, it forces Marianne to confront how readily he treats his own interpretation of their relationship as more authoritative than her refusal. She leaves the studio, rejecting both his claim and the arrangement as he has enacted it.

Later Boundary and Continuity

A later encounter with Connell clarifies that Marianne’s language of submission does not amount to unrestricted consent. She tells him that he may do what he wants with her and asks him to say that she belongs to him, then asks whether he will hit her. Connell refuses, checks whether that is acceptable, and asks whether she wants to stop; when she nods, he stops. The scene offers a sharp contrast with Lukas’s conduct: an invitation to surrender control remains bounded by the other person’s capacity to decline, and the encounter ends when Marianne withdraws consent.